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The seventh album by The Cribs is a bit of a paradox. It’s the quickest thing they’ve ever recorded, done and dusted in five days compared to a relatively leisurely seven for 2004’s self-titled debut, yet it’s also been six years in the making. It’s a release that’s going to surprise fans and it’s called – quite brilliantly – 24-7 Rock Star Shit.

The album’s origins lie back in 2011, when the three Jarman brothers were making In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull. After recording the bulk of …Brazen Bull with producer Dave Fridmann at his isolated Tarbox Road Studio in upstate New York, they flew straight to Chicago’s Electrical Audio, home to another unique producer, the venerated Steve Albini, of Shellac and In Utero fame.

There, over two cold November days, they stayed in the on-site dormitories, drank copious amounts of Albini’s trademark fluffy coffee and laid down four tracks for possible inclusion on …Brazen Bull, but which had such a spirit and sound of their own that they were laid aside for a rainy day. "We were really into the tracks, but they definitely had their own vibe - it didn't make sense to try and shoehorn them onto Brazen Bull," explains vocalist/bassist Gary Jarman. “Sometimes when we work with producers we’re pretty on their case, and that record was pretty involved,” says drummer Ross Jarman. “With Steve we just took a step back and let him do his thing. We just wanted to get his raw power down on record.”

When it came time for the next album, there was a plan to make two LPs to represent two distinct strands of their work: a pop record and a punk record, one polished and melodic, the other raw and underworked. Yet the former took precedence, and became 2015’s For All My Sisters. The punk album – hinted at in the press – instead became a thing of fan myth. “It’s what we often do in this band – we have the stripped back, lo-fi, in-your-face stuff, but there’s a side of us that has this affection for pop music,” says singer/guitarist Ryan Jarman. “We always start off being more punk rock but often the pop influences come in and we make a record like the last few, which combine those things.”

After touring wrapped on For All My Sisters, the band made it their mission to complete the punk album, and convened on Gary’s house in Portland, Oregon, determined to keep that pop side in check. It involved working on – but not overworking – songs they’d been storing up. “When we make an album now, it’s a pretty long process,” says Gary. “We jam and we write the songs and we record demos and we finesse them, then we work on the lyrics and harmonies and by the time we get in there to do the proper version we know that song so well. With these songs, it was about doing the opposite – it was about retaining that visceral excitement that you get when you first write a song, when you’re excited and adrenalized because it's new and unfamiliar, not tightening the bolts on them too much.”

“We were in the mindset to make a punk rock record, but we had to make sure we stayed in that paradigm, keeping those pop elements out,” says Ryan. “No overdubs, you know.”

And so, in November 2016, exactly five years after that first visit, they entered Electrical Audio with the intention of recording another four songs, which soon became six. And three days later, they left with an album. "We figured if we made it an EP it would take some of the pressure off, and we could indulge ourselves a bit…but working in this way was so galvanizing that we kept going, and ended up with an LP," laughs Ross.

Albini, who describes himself as an engineer, not a producer, and has famously esoteric techniques, proved a good fit for the band. They recorded as-live straight to tape, onto 16 tracks. “I’ve always had more of an affection for recording live, spending more time in the rehearsal room rather than the studio,” says Ryan. “If you’re in the studio for too long, the energy starts to get edited out.”

“When you record with Steve, he sets up the mics and says, ‘This is going to sound great – all you guys have to do is just nail your takes,’” says Gary. “So we just played good versions of the songs and that’s why it only took five days. Not for dogmatic reasons or to try and prove some kind of point - we just had it in the can. We could have been done in four days, but we had one extra song that held things up a little bit.”

The resulting recordings, Ryan says, are “really immediate, really raw and it really represents where we are at this point, and that’s all I really want from a record. Something that’s stripped-back and unsterilized. I miss that in what’s in vogue today, and I’m sure other people do.”

So The Cribs had 24-7 Rock Star Shit up their sleeves while touring for the 10th anniversary of Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever in spring 2017, a tour that was to the delight of fans – who helped The Cribs sell out a hometown gig at Leeds’ First Direct Arena on May 20 – but not a natural fit for a band focused on never looking backward. “It was a great tour and it gave us a taste of being an arena rock band and that’s cool, but we don’t like wallowing in nostalgia,” says Ryan.

In fact, the run ended with the surprise release of new single “In Your Palace” – and the album will follow similar shock-and-awe tactics. “It’s the only time we’ve ever thought of doing a surprise release, rather than the normal thing of teasing singles for a few months,” says Ryan.

“We’ve been in a band a long time – this is our seventh record – and we’ve been doing this for 15 years now,” says Gary. “You get to the point where certain parts of the machinations of the music industry become monotonous and laborious. But we’ve got the luxury of being quite autonomous, we’ve got a dedicated fanbase who’ve been with us for a long time and we thought, why not just cut out all the extraneous stuff for once? This way we bypass as much of the usual protocol as possible – we just want to get it to people as quickly and easily as we can.”

It’s a fast release for an album that throbs with immediacy, from “Give Good Time”’s squeal of feedback to “Year Of Hate”’s yelped vocals and sense of paranoid urgency. But it’s not all about going full throttle: “In Your Palace” is as melodic as anything the band have done, and “Sticks Not Twigs,” one of the last tracks written for the album, is an acoustic track. It means that, though the fans have long had an inkling about The Cribs’ mythical punk album, it’s a safe bet that the finished thing will still surprise. A new era for The Cribs, then. An album that’s as fresh as can be, as few steps as possible between writing sessions in Ross’s Wakefield garage and your ears. And soon to be heard in a venue near you. That, as ever from these three, is 24-7 Rock Star Shit. Cribs vs the world – just as it should be.

In 2012 the band released the Misled Youth EP followed shortly by their debut full length album Cokefloat!, which garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, BBC and
SPIN. That album, recorded by ex-Test Icicle, Rory Attwell on the boat/studio "Lightship95," introduced the band’s explosive songwriting to the world, boiling down emotionally charged lyrics with the whiplash snap of punk. The band soon after toured with Japandroids,

Bleached, We Are Scientists and The Cribs and their live show proves time and again their comfort on the stage, leading SPIN Magazine to place the band at number four on their "Top

50 Best Acts at SXSW Festival in 2013.”

PAWS' second album, Youth Culture Forever marked a significant change in strength and mood for the band. Recorded live in a home studio in the woods in upstate New York, the album captured the Scottish trio in their element. Fiercely loud and brutally raw, YCF also demonstrated emotional and dynamic depths that added new shades and colours to the sound already developed on their debut album, resulting in a record of renewed confidence and even greater scope. The band were also very humbled to see Youth Culture Forever become their second album to be nominated for The Scottish Album Of The Year Award.

The tour that followed pushed the band to new heights as musicians, continuing to forge a strong, united bond together, forcing them to dig deeper than ever before to keep their heads above water, especially when the consequences of constant travel and unfortunate circumstances reared their ugly heads. That tour, in all its theft grief and toil, cemented the idea in the band’s collective mind that in order to make something work, against all odds, you've gotta go big or go home…. which brings us to No Grace.

More than just the third PAWS record, No Grace is representative of a transformative period of time in the band’s life and is the gravel-throated affirmation of that 'do it or die' attitude that informs any great work of passion. It's the song you sing when you get kicked in the teeth; the decision you make to get back on your feet and rattle off another punch; it's the humility of defeat and the ecstasy of triumph because you never gave up. But more than anything, it's the sound of the pure fucking energy and joy that comes from making something with your whole heart.

As well as being a statement of intent, No Grace was that opportunity to go big or go home. So PAWS went big. After discovering a mutual appreciation between themselves and bassist/ producer Mark Hoppus (Blink 182/+44), PAWS enlisted his support to help push these new songs to their wildest heights and pack the heftiest punch they could muster. And from the

eponymous opener and first single, 'No Grace', it's clear the two are a perfect fit. Recorded last summer between Chem 19 in

Glasgow and a private studio in Somerset, it's a partnership that strikes hard through the core of the record. PAWS’ third album distills the best of what came before it and builds on it with strength and confidence.

Like its been bottled up and shaken every day for the past year and

shot out point blank with every press of the play button; these songs soar and stun, they fill your head, swell in your heart, rumble in your belly and consume all available space in your ear canals. But more than all of these things, No Grace is what happens when instead of back down or giving in, you turn the fuck up.

We encourage you to do the same.
"Sore-throated, sabre-toothed glory." - SPIN Magazine

"This is agonisingly painful music, poured straight from the heart - just as punk should be." - BBC

PAWS are Phillip, Josh and Ryan.

The band formed in the ashes of a briefly (but passionately) lived "Violent Femme-esque", Glasgow based band called "A Copenhagen Hope". After the departure of one of it's founding members (Nick Anderson) the remaining three friends (Phillip Taylor, Josh Swinney and Matthew Scott) formed PAWS.

After their first show in 2010 opening for Dum Dum Girls in Glasgow on a sold out bill, the band began to establish a strong presence in Glasgow and the surrounding areas by playing almost weekly at times. The trio self recorded and released the majority of their early writings on a small bedroom run cassette tape label that Phillip had started called Cath Records. As well as those releases, the band released their debut 7" vinyl in 2011 on Edinburgh Based indie label Gerry Loves Records. In the beggining of 2012 PAWS signed with Brighton/Brooklyn based FatCat Records. Their first release for the label was their "Misled Youth EP" in May of that year. In October their debut full length album "Cokefloat!" was released. The LP was recorded by ex Test Icicle, Rory Attwell on the boat/studio "Lightship95" docked in London's Trinity Buoy Wharf.

A relentless touring schedule throughout their first three years has seen PAWS tour the UK, Europe, USA and gather a strong and loyal fan base wherever they go. The band have toured with Japandroids, Bleached, We Are Scientists, The Cribs and have also previously been invited to open shows for The Breeders, Fucked Up, Mates Of State, No Age, Wavves, Ty Segall and many others. Spin Magazine placed the band in at number four on their "Top 50 Best Acts at SXSW Festival 2013"

In spring 2013 Matthew departed from the band to pursue other interests and Ryan Drever (No Island/Garden Of Elks) was added to complete the PAWS puzzle.

2014 will see the release of their sophomore album for FatCat Records which will be recorded in New York.

Sat 10/21

$26 Adv.

Tue 8/22

Thu 8/31

$13.50

Wed 9/20

$12 Adv.

Our History

Since 1991, music fans far and wide have recognized the Crocodile as Seattle's best live music venue. There is no other spot in the 206 with such a storied and beloved past, and no other rock and roll venue that has earned its right to occupy the hearts of so many.

Incredible bands played within the walls of Belltown's much loved living room. Including: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Cheap Trick, R.E.M., Mudhoney, and Yoko Ono.